Results tagged “citybudget”

Chicago's Chief Financial Officer Gene Saffold is predicting that the city's budget hole will be worse next year. This is after the city burns through a new $320 million "rainy day fund" created from the parking meter lease. Saffold predicted a deficit of upwards of half a billion dollars next year, citing declining tax revenue and increased wages, compared against a projected budget of $6 billion. (Is this the first time the city has engaged in long-range financial planning? Publicly, at least?) While raising taxes is a last resort, according to Saffold, "nothing is ruled out at this point," Saffold told the Tribune. "The mayor has instructed us not to look at property taxes as we move forward in 2010."

The Sun-Times is reporting today that the city and the FOP have reached a deal to let veteran officers retire at 55 instead of 60, in an effort to save as much cash as humanly possible. Cops retiring at the new lower-age cutoff would take a "staggered payout" of their comp time, whereas previously, older police retiring at 60 would otherwise be charged co-pays until Medicare kicked in at 65.

The mayor plans to spend $260 million on education, for after-school programs and teacher recruitment and training, as well as expanding Head Start for some 10,000 children. Daley also plans to rebuild 43 miles of pothole-filled arterial streets, while upgrading the fleet of police cars, including the installation of more cameras and finance more police overtime. The mayor also plans to spend about $144 million to convert existing condominum stock into affordable rentals, and $31 million to rehabilitate the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes on the South Side. “There are many opportunities to create jobs and protect people in their quality of life,” Daley said.

So apparently the news that unemployment around the nation is at its highest in 25 years isn't enough for City Hall. Mayor Daley's chief of staff Paul Volpe announced today that, not even a week into March, the city is already short $33 million for the year and the city could fall behind by as much as $200 million before we roll into 2010. Per the Trib's Clout Street:

It turns out that lovely Christmas tree that adorns Daley Plaza comes at quite a price. CBS2 calculated that the city spends over $300,000 to buy the tree and to pay the workers to create the frame and assemble the tree. The tree is actually made up of 113 small trees combined, unlike the single (privately-funded) tree that adorns Rockefeller Center in New York City, and it took workers six weeks to hoist the trees into position.

Through Wednesday, we're counting down the top 8 local stories that captivated us in 2008.

Earlier this week, we discussed the insane new parking meter rates that would go into effect if the City Council passed legislation allowing Mayor Daley to lease the meters to a private company. Well, they passed it by a vote of 40-5. Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) opposed the measure, claiming she didn't have enough time to review it, prompting this amazing (and classic) response from Ald. Richard Mell (33rd):

How many of us read the stuff we do get, OK? I try to. I try to. I try to. But being realistic, being realistic, it's like getting your insurance policy -- it's small print, OK?

Yes, Dick, it's just like an insurance policy. Why would you need to read the entire thing? We will give him this, though: at least he's being honest. The bill also had opposition from Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) who seems to still have something of a connect with reality, saying, "I'm sorry, but there are too many people in our city living paycheck to paycheck." Another tidbit about the new bill? Free Sundays and holidays are now a thing of the past and some meters will even require 24-hour payment. So explain to us again how the City can afford 2,000 new SUVs?

There's news out of City Hall today and for the first time in weeks it doesn't involve Mayor Daley's Prophesies of Doom™. Instead, it seems the Mayor and union leaders have worked out an agreement that could greatly reduce the 929 planned layoffs in the city's 2009 budget. In exchange for offering eligible union members cash incentives for voluntary retirement, union leaders have agreed to reduce the cost of overtime for city workers.

"We have 433 eligible people in the Laborers pension fund. We're hoping around 60 will take advantage of it," Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Local 1001, said Monday.

Continue reading "Daley, Unions Work Out Agreement to Reduce City Layoffs"

Mayor Daley has many nicknames among Chicagoans, but we're going to start referring to him as The Harbinger of Doom. Daley announced that he has been informed by several CEOs to expect massive layoffs in the city's private sector as the nation's current economic recession deepens. "Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there’s going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That’s just the beginning. It’s not their end result." Oh, and that $420 million budget hole the city is facing? Turns out that's not the only bad news we're facing.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that Chicago will close the book on 2008 with an unreserved corporate fund balance of just $1.5 million, a dangerously low level that, Wall Street Rating agencies warned, threatens the all-important bond rating used to determine borrowing costs.

Continue reading "Daleyist: Layoffs, Clout, and Iraq"

Photo by reillyandrew
• Former Chicago alderman Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak has been ordered by a judge to cough up the money to cover court costs for waiting until the last second to change his plea to guilty.
• In spite of threats from angry Aldermen, Mayor Daley's 2009 City Budget is one step closer to becoming a reality.
• The three-year-old girl who went missing last night was found safely but the search is now on for the woman who apparently tried to abduct her in the first place.

A new round of PR firm contracts, at $5 million a piece, has Mayor Daley under fire again. His administration has signed up with Valerie Denney Communications, Better World Advertising and Metropolitan Group LLC, adding to seven previously announced contracts, for a grand total of $50 million. This has not gone over well at a time when so many other cuts are being made to the city budget thanks to that pesky $420 million hole. Press secretary Jacquelyn Heard promises no payments will be made to these firms will be made until that hole is erased. So...never? Said Heard, "When you're trying to alert millions of people to hundreds of city programs, it's understandable that you need to go beyond the current level of staffing. But many of the other programs dialed back were also helpful and this is no different. You have to live within your means. Sometimes you have to make tough choices." 10 PR firms? Are we that bad off? Cause this has nothing to do with the 2016 Olympics, we're sure. Of course, Hizzonah is too busy with prognostications and parties to actually address city budget issues.

Mayor Daley's proposed 2009 budget got no love from organized labor this weekend. But Daley's not taking any of their guff by telling them to go along with the plan or be prepared to find a pink slip. On Friday, union leaders and city officials met to discuss the 929 city employees who would be laid off if Daley's budget were okayed by the city council (we wonder what the odds are on that bet).

The City has released its 2009 budget and you read all about it in this 148-page whopper of an overview [PDF]. Want more? You can scope out this 250+ page summary. Check out all of the city's info here. We've got to read through it all first, but we'll be offering up our analysis in a bit.

In order to save some money, Mayor Daley announced today that City Hall would be closed on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and New Years Eve both this year and next. The six day shut-down will save the city approximately $19.8 million total. Sayeth the Sun-Times, "The only city employees scheduled to work those traditionally high-absenteeism days will be police officers, firefighters, 911 center employees and a skeletal crew in departments like Streets and Sanitation, Water, Aviation and Family Services." The stinker? The rest of the city workers will have to take the days off unpaid in order for the whole thing to work. We guess a few unpaid days beats getting laid off. In the event of a snowstorm, the city workers would be called back in.

Union leaders for city workers have been informed by Daley aides that they should prepare their workers for as many as 1,000 layoffs in the near future due to the city's continuing budget woes. With the city facing a $400 million shortfall, Mayor Daley is slated to unveil the 2009 budget on October 15 and layoffs look to be a major part of saving money. Said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), "Probably everything will have to be done with layoffs." Daley is also eliminating 3,000 vacant positions. The layoffs are projected to save in the neighborhood of $100 million.

Just a week after seeming amenable to concessions to help the city close a projected $400 million budget hole, Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said that his members aren't really feeling Daley's calls for cuts, which include city workers forgoing promised pay raises and accepting extra unpaid leave days. "We base what we're gonna do in the future on what we've seen happen in the past. And what we've seen in the past is a scandalous waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars," Donahue said, referring to the Hired Trucks scandal, city contracting and hiring fraud charges, and 14 months of contract negotiations that have stalled. In fact, Lodge Seven's third Vice President, Greg Bella, wrote in an editorial posted on the FOP's website that they "will sit down and help the mayor find solutions to the problem but not at the expense of our officers."

The Chicago City Council agreed on Tuesday to mandatory unpaid furloughs of two-days for non-union city employees and three day furloughs for those who are unrepresented or are earning more than $75,000. The city expects to save an estimated $3.3 million, as they scramble to close an expected $400 million deficit in the city's budget 2009 fiscal year budget. But the pain won't stop there. The mayor refused to give specifics on layoffs or furloughs for front-line city workers, saying he wanted to talk to union leaders representing city workers first. "You have to sit down and talk to these people...They understand how important these jobs are to them...We're gonna work with them...If you can work this out and you can keep a number of people working, it helps the economy," Daley said. Chicago Federation of Labor President Dennis Gannon said "they're not asking for anything yet, [but] everything is on the table. You can assume that furlough days are part of the mix. Layoffs could be part of the mix...We'll be united wherever we make our stand. We're gonna have a coalition meeting next week to discuss what actions the unions will take collectively - if any."

Daley’s preliminary budget is expected to include a $400 million budget shortfall, the largest in recent history, and some are speculating it will lead to layoffs. One union leader said the City’s Chief Financial Officer Paul Volpe and Intergovernment Affairs Director John Dunn have tried to prepare him for the worst.